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Starting up always requires hustle, but some founders say
"hustling" would be more apropos.

Most of the entrepreneurship books will tell you that first comes
the idea, then comes the carefully crafted business plan with
copious market analyses. But from the looks of some companies'
startup stories, factors such as timing and tenacity might be
bigger determinants for success.

Take the example of Michael Kirban and Ira Liran, the founders of
Vita Coco. The two got their start nearly
a decade ago by convincing a Naked Juice distributor, whom
they randomly encountered on a Brooklyn, N.Y., street, to
deliver a product that they had yet to create.

The plan ended up backfiring after the founders failed to follow
the proper registration procedures and the Food and Drug
Administration blocked their three shipping containers full of
coconut water from entering the United States. Instead, Kirban
found a distributor in the Bahamas, flew to the island nation and
then “literally went door to door selling coconut water out of
the back of a rental car,” he recalls. “I would go into bars,
restaurants, hotels. I sold half the product and broke even.”

But their founders' leap into entrepreneurship did eventually pay
off. Today, Vita Coco has gone up against big-time coconut water
brands, like Pepsi’s O.N.E. and Coca-Cola’s Zico, and sold more
than $100 million worth of the beverage last year. The brand has
pushed into the U.S., France, the United Kingdom, Japan and, most
recently, Canada. The company has also managed to wrangle a suite
of celebrity investors and endorsers that includes Madonna, Demi
Moore, Matthew McConaughey and Rihanna -- and it forecasts $250
million in revenue by the end of this year.

“This is not a U.S. brand anymore,” says Kirban, 38. “It has
potential to be a major global brand one day, like Red Bull.”

Making the leap from bit player to major consumer-products star
takes more than moxie, however. An inordinate amount of pavement
pounding would also seem to be key.

Last year, Messi Gerami launched Heart of Tea
[http://heartoftea.com/], which sells fancy flavors of iced tea
like pomegranate orange. The 26-year-old, who comes from multiple
generations of tea farmers, started the venture by distributing
bottles in 50 delis and cafes before building a bigger base.

A big part of what the company spent time on during the early
days, Gerami says, was being fully accountable for helping its
small retail partners make the brand successful. That meant
weekly visits with store managers to ensure Heart of Tea garnered
good visibility on shop shelves, and providing demos of the
product with free samples on Manhattan’s streets. A key
distributor later helped the brand push into bigger chains in and
around the New York City area.

Heart of Tea is now available in more than 400 stores --
including some Whole Foods Markets, Duane Reade and Fairway
Market locations, within the tri-state area.

“For us, it’s all about the pitch and getting a one-on-one
relationship with managers and store [product] buyers,” says
Gerami, who is aiming to expand nationally by 2015. “We’re
planning a very slow build.”

Expanding to that next level often takes risk. For Vita Coco,
it’s helped to have celebs on board who, at times, have also
acted as brand ambassadors in advertisements. Back when the
company still had fewer than 20 employees a few years ago, Kirban
says Madonna’s manager approached him to form a partnership. But
since there wasn’t enough money for an advertising campaign --
let alone an endorsement deal -- the entrepreneur offered the
musician a slot in a small investment round. That partnership
then attracted other celebs.

From those key endorsements, more mainstream shoppers took note
of coconut water. And soon the company would move beyond the New
York City-based ethnic grocery stores that accounted for most the
company's early sales. Shops in Los Angeles started carrying the
Vita Coco brand, followed by national drug store chains and
retailers like Costco over the past couple of years.

“It was crazy when we started, and this eight-and-a-half years
has been that—one crazy thing after the other,” says Kirban. “We
just kept going, and there was nothing to lose.”